Please consider including the MHS in your end of year giving

“It was the coldest Night we have had this Season – Fahrenheit’s Thermometer when I went to bed last Night, and when I rose this Morning was at 18. And the cold this morning was my excuse for rising late, and for doing very little after I rose.”
Featured Item from the MHS Collection
Edes Family Tea Party Punch Bowl

“I recollect perfectly well that in the afternoon preceding the evening of the destruction of the Tea a number of gentlemen met in the parlour of my father's house...”

This porcelain bowl belonged to journalist and publisher Benjamin Edes of Boston. On the afternoon of 16 December 1773, a group of men assembled in the parlor of Edes’s house on Brattle Street. Edes, who was closely involved in the deliberations surrounding the arrival of the tea, had recruited his guests to help plan and carry out an audacious attack on the property of the East India Tea Company. While waiting for evening to fall, the party enjoyed Edes’s hospitality—which his son Peter recalled in a letter to his grandson: “I recollect perfectly well that in the afternoon preceding the evening of the destruction of the Tea a number of gentlemen met in the parlour of my father's house how many I cannot say as...I was not admitted to their presence. my station was in another room to make punch for them in the bowl which is now in your possession and which I filled several times—they remained in the house till dark...” Edes and his guests joined others on Griffin’s Wharf, where the three ships carrying tea were docked. Well-organized and methodical, within a period of three hours, the group disposed of three hundred and forty-two chests containing over 92,000 pounds of tea. Read more about Edes, the punch bowl, and the destruction of the tea.
This Week’s Online Program

On Wednesday, 16 December, at 5:30 PM, Nicholas A. Basbanes presents Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In Cross of Snow, Nicholas Basbanes reveals the life, the times, the work—the soul—of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a man who shaped the literature of a new nation with his countless poems, sonnets, stories, essays, and translations, and whose renown was so wide reaching that his deep friendships included Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, and Charles Sumner. Highlighting research materials from the MHS archive, Basbanes will frame Longfellow’s life and work in the context of 19th-century literary Boston. Register for this online program.
Upcoming January Programs
On Wednesday, 6 January, at 5:30 PM, Joanne B. Freeman, Yale University; Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia; Rachel A. Shelden, Penn State University; Erik B. Alexander, Southern Illinois University; and moderator Ted Widmer present ‘At Noon on the 20th Day of January': Contested Elections in American History.

On Monday, 11 January, at 5:30 PM, Alea Henle and Peter Drummey, MHS, present Rescued from Oblivion: Historical Cultures in the Early United States.

On Tuesday, 12 January, at 5:15 PM, Zachary Bennett, Connecticut College, presents Water Over the Dam: The Destruction of Colonial New England's River Fisheries with comment by Matthew McKenzie, University of Connecticut.

On Thursday, 14 January, at 5:30 PM, Agnès Delahaye, University of Lyon, presents Settling the Good Land—Governance & Promotion in John Winthrop’s New England 1620–1650.

On Tuesday, 19 January, at 5:15 PM, Rachel Walker, University of Hartford, presents High Brow, Low Brow: Phrenology, Fashion & Female Activism in the 19th Century with comment by Sari Altschuler, Northeastern University.

On Thursday, 21 January, at 5:15 PM, Traci Parker, University of Massachusetts—Amherst, presents Revolutionary Weddings: Marriage in the Black Panther Party with comment by Robyn Spencer, CUNY—Lehman College.

On Tuesday, 26 January, at 5:15 PM, Sarah Ketchley, University of Washington, presents Excavating Egyptology: The Emma B. Andrews Diary Project with comment by Jennifer Stertzer, University of Virginia.

Visit www.masshist.org/events for more information and to register for programs.
Interested in Viewing Past Programs?
If you missed a program or would like to revisit the material presented please visit www.masshist.org/video or our YouTube channel. A selection of past programs is just a click away.
Share Your COVID-19 Experience(s)

The MHS invites you to contribute your COVID-19 experience(s) to our collection. Record your experiences on a daily, weekly, or intermittent basis. You can contribute your thoughts and images online. Visit our COVID-19 web display to learn more and to share your thoughts. Or, you can keep a journal and donate it to the MHS. Contact collections@masshist.org for more information.  
 
Thank you to everyone who has shared so far. If you have not yet done so or would like to contribute again, please visit www.masshist.org/projects/covid/index.php. You can also read what others have shared.

Our Members are the heart of the MHS community and an integral part of the MHS story. Become a Member to help make possible the Society’s mission to promote the study of American history. Receive benefits including invitations to enhanced Member-only events; free or discounted admission to special programs; and access to publications such as our calendar of events, newsletter, and Annual Report. Learn more at www.masshist.org/members.